Input Stories

An artificial intelligence startup is planning to build a data center campus capable of generating its own power (The Wall Street Journal, subscription).

What’s going on: NVIDIA-backed “Poolside is joining with the cloud-infrastructure provider [CoreWeave] on a plan to build a data center on more than 500 acres of land that sits on a sprawling ranch in West Texas. The site is owned by the Mitchell family, which has run oil-and-gas companies for decades in the state and is located in the heart of the fracking boom.” 

• The two firms will take advantage of the site’s location in the natural gas-rich Permian Basin, betting that putting the complex there will cut down on costs and increase the data center’s long-term viability.

Why it’s important: The U.S. doesn’t yet have enough data centers to power demand for AI, and it’s unclear “ whether many data centers will have sufficient power and water to operate without becoming a significant strain on local resources.”

What it means: “The project, called Horizon, represents a new model for building and financing AI-related computing expansions.”

• In the near term, Poolside—which is in the middle of a $2 billion fundraising round—will get access to NVIDIA AI computing resources, and in the longer term will work with CoreWeave on an expansion “of a data center with two gigawatts of computing firepower, the electric-generation capacity of the Hoover Dam.”

What it will use: Horizon will use an onsite plant, including pipelines, constructed years ago by Occidental Petroleum.

• The existing infrastructure will enable the project to generate its own power.